Mussels Wash Up in Droves

From May, 1995 (Update #24)

GREEN BAY, Wis. - A staggering number of dead zebra mussels have washed up and completely covered a private sand beach near Point Comfort, which is located 10 miles north of Green Bay on Lake Michigan. Imagine an army of dump trucks leaving quadrillions of mussels on the beach and you start to get an idea of the massiveness of this pile-up, which extends at least a quarter mile down the beach and is at least 15 feet wide and two feet high. The only thing I've ever seen like it were huge masses of rotting alewife carcasses on the beaches in the mid '60s.

ID: 199505-2.

The Zebra Mussel Update was a 4- to 8-page quarterly national newsletter published by the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute from May 1990 through May 1997. The ZMU documented the spread of the zebra mussel -- an exotic nuisance mussel -- through North America's freshwater environments, especially the Great Lakes, and on efforts to control it.